


Love Is No Big Truth

by felonazcorp



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bookstore, F/M, M/M, Merlin owns an antique bookstore, Slow Burn, and Harry is a pain in his arse, background Harry/Eggsy, his life is very difficult, like super slow okay
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-25
Updated: 2015-07-06
Packaged: 2018-04-06 03:50:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4206858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/felonazcorp/pseuds/felonazcorp
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The greatest thing about London, in Merlin's opinion, is that nobody really cares what you do as long as you don't bother them by doing it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [demisms](https://archiveofourown.org/users/demisms/gifts).



Every morning, Merlin opens the shop at precisely the same time: seven o'clock on the nose. Some might say it's rather early to have a bookstore open its doors, but Merlin doesn't really care one way or the other. He rarely gets any customers before nine or so, but those two hours of blissful peace and quiet are really the best part of Merlin's morning. He can sit behind the counter with a cup of tea and read the paper as slow as he likes, work the Sudoku puzzle, watch as people hurry past the window of his shop with their collars turned up and their chins tucked down, too wrapped up in their own little worlds to see anything but their next destination. 

It's nice to live right above where you work. The commute is by far the easiest he's ever had. 

It was on one such a morning that a cat marched straight through his door, looking for all the world like it belonged among the shelves, sniffing curiously at the books on the lowest levels before making its way to the window where it leapt up and made itself comfortable. 

Merlin, used to animals but unused to unannounced visitors, had just stared at it in bemusement for a minute or two before he came closer. 

The cat had no collar, and also apparently, no desire to leave its perch. It stayed there the whole day, surveying the street like a king overlooking his kingdom, magnanimously letting people come in to pet it, and Merlin sold a good three times more books that day than in any other day in living memory. 

And that's how _MacLennan & Sons_ acquired a shop cat. 

 

This morning, Buddha — he'd just called it _Cat_ for months before a very earnest looking young lady with a fake bindi stuck between her eyebrows and shoddy-looking henna on her hands told him that he couldn't possibly have a cat with no name, and promptly named him _Buddha_ — is already at his perch by the time Merlin opens the doors, and he gives the giant grey beast a fond scratch between the ears as he passes to throw the bolt and latch the door back against the wall. 

It's raining, the sort of typical miserable drizzle that London is so famous for, the sky slate-grey and the streets slippery and cold, but Merlin loves the rain, and even though his shop is full of antique books and the damp would absolutely ruin them, he runs the risk of keeping his door propped open because the smell of wet air and cold cement is soothing and peaceful, and he thinks it's worth it. 

Besides, it's not like any of his customers complain. Rainy days are his best days, from a business standpoint. People pop inside his opened door to escape the relentless downpour, and spend so long loitering in the hopes that the rain will let up that they feel obligated to purchase _something._ Even if they aren't interested in first-editions of historical biographies, he can usually manage to foist an A. A. Milne or a Lewis Carroll off on them before they can come up with a believable excuse for why they've been hanging about for twenty plus minutes without purchasing anything. 

His paper completed, the sports section removed to be placed under Buddha's litter box for the monstrous cat to fling clay litter over in a symbolic _fuck you_ to Arsenal, Merlin leans against his counter with a fresh cup of tea clutched between his hands, and surveys the quiet, dim interior of his shop. 

The greatest thing about London, in Merlin's opinion, is that nobody really cares what you do as long as you don't bother them by doing it. 

Most people would say that running an antique bookstore right in the middle of town, close to one of London's many university campuses would be a recipe for disaster. He's heard it all before, of course, from his sister who finds his insistence on being a hermit in the middle of the largest city in the UK baffling to say the least, from his mother who worries that he's going to die alone, from his friends who think he's growing _boring_ in his retirement. 

_You should offer a wider selection of books,_ they say to him, their eyebrows drawing close and their lips pursing as if they're physically restraining all the things they want to say to him. _Why don't you try stocking those study guide books? You could carry notebooks and pens as well. Have you thought about selling branded tote bags?_

Merlin doesn't want to sell tote bags. He doesn't want to sell Cliff Notes, either. It took him three years of being in business before he started carrying business cards, and even now he writes the store name and address longhand in the cover of each book he sells. (In pencil, of course, because Merlin has enough of a love of old books to shudder at the idea of defacing one permanently in such a manner.) He doesn't have any sort of seating in the shop anymore, now that Buddha has claimed the window seat for his own, and that suits him just fine. If people are uncomfortable, they're more likely to leave quickly, and Merlin is indeed enough of a hermit to find that a pleasing prospect. 

He's just thinking about how much he enjoys being left alone when someone walks through the doors, a load of books clutched in his arms, wrapped in what looks like a bin bag to keep them from getting wet. 

Merlin is just about to open his mouth to tell the kid to get lost, he _sells_ books, he doesn't _buy_ them, and certainly not from university students who look like they haven't had a solid meal in weeks, when his sister's voice pops up in his head again, chiding him for being so unsociable and stubborn, and he's so distracted being annoyed that Sarah is able to nag him even from the four hundred miles that separate them that he's not quick enough to stop the kid from unloading his bin bag all over Merlin's counter. 

“Can I get a receipt for these?” the kid asks, his American accent broad and loud in the quiet of Merlin's little shop. 

“I'm not purchasing them,” Merlin responds automatically, looking at the pile that's being slid across the counter towards him. It looks like a collection of textbooks, heavy, colorful volumes that Merlin knows are probably not being used in classrooms anymore because publishing houses know that if they alter the wording of chapter three slightly, they can force students to purchase brand new books every semester. 

“Yeah, whatever, I just want a receipt so I can take them off my taxes,” the kid replies, and Merlin finds himself looking up to see if he's popping chewing gum. 

He's not, but he seems the type. 

Merlin is fairly certain tax refunds are a little more complicated than that, but what does he know? He pays his taxes every year like a normal person, and doesn't bother trying to claim anything because he doesn't have an accountant and that's that's far too much work. He deals with enough paperwork trying to keep his store afloat.

Ten minutes later, he's left alone in his shop again, six textbooks richer and a sheet of scrap paper with the world's worst receipt scrawled across it poorer. 

“That was strange,” he says to Buddha, who ignores him and lifts his leg to start grooming himself. 

And that's how _MacLennan & Sons_ started to carry textbooks. 

 

His sister, of course, was overjoyed when he told her, obnoxiously smug as she craned her head to one side to avoid letting her baby reach for her dangling earrings. 

“I told you you should start catering more towards students,” she crows at him, half her face out of frame as her baby continued to try to rip her earrings out of her ears. Why she insists on wearing them when Matthew is in his grabbing stage, Merlin will never know. “You should listen to me more often, Teddy. Perhaps one day you'll start turning a profit.” 

Merlin, having long ago given up on trying to convince his sister to stop calling him _Teddy_ , just sighs and idly wishes he'd put whiskey in his tea before accepting her Skype call. 

“I'm not interested in profits,” he protests halfheartedly, watching with a morbid sort of fascination as Matthew gives up on Sarah's earrings and instead shifts to shoving his fist in his mouth and drooling as prolifically as the St. Bernard they'd had growing up. Matthew is Sarah's third child, so Merlin is accustomed to babies' habits of producing enough saliva to drown a man, but it's still sort of like watching a car crash. You want to look away, but somehow can't find the fortitude to do so. 

“No, of course not,” Sarah replies, all her focus on her baby. “You're just interested in squandering the money Grandad left you.” 

Which is rather unfair of her, really, since Merlin isn't just squandering the inheritance he'd been left, he's also squandering the shop he'd been left. He's not going to bring that up, though. Sarah had put all the money she was given into a college fund for her children, which is a noble thing to do and something Merlin supports wholeheartedly, but as the only child Merlin has has a fur coat and four paws, he doesn't have to worry about that sort of thing. 

“I'm happy, isn't that enough?” 

Instantly, Sarah's expression falls, and Merlin feels a little guilty for such a low blow. Not guilty enough to take it back, of course, but still. That was unkind. 

“Of course that's enough, Teddy, but still. I'm worried about you.” 

_This_ is something Merlin is well used to hearing, and so he turns his ears off for the rest of her speech about how alone he is in his little shop, about how he never comes up to Edinburgh to see his family, about how she's afraid he's going to die alone and nobody will know and he'll be dead for days before someone tries to come and find him. At least she hasn't started in on how his cat will eat most of his face before he's discovered, that whole train of thought makes him profoundly uncomfortable. 

Mercifully, his mobile choses this moment to ring, and he has an excuse to end this torturous exercise. 

“I'll speak to you later, alright? My phone's going off, I have to go.” 

He waves and cuts the connection before his sister can complain, letting out a sigh of relief before pressing _ignore_ on his phone, because he doesn't feel like speaking to anyone. Instead, he goes and makes himself a new cup of tea. 

Perhaps he should have known better than to ignore his phone, however, because as soon as he returns to the front of the shop, he finds a man in a perfectly-tailored suit standing there, an umbrella being used as a makeshift cane, dripping water all over his carpets as the man idly peruses the spines of the books closest to him. 

Merlin sighs heavily, his eyebrows drawing down. 

“What the bloody hell do you want?” he asks, keeping his scowl in place through lots of practice when Harry turns around and gives him what can only charitably be called a _pout_. He looks like Matthew when he's taking a shit when he makes that face. Merlin hasn't decided whether or not he'll bother telling Harry this, though, because he enjoys keeping such entertaining fodder to himself.

“Can't a man come visit his friend without a specific reason?” Harry asks, spreading his hands, the leather of his shoes creaking as he rocks back on his heels. 

Merlin continues to scowl. “Not when that man is _you_ , Galahad.” 

Harry's innocent look melts away quickly and he smiles. “You've caught me.” He props the umbrella up against the counter and swans away towards the window, bending slightly to scratch Buddha under his chin and coo quietly at the cat. “I have a proposition for you,” he says without looking away from Merlin's cat, and Merlin finds himself sighing. 

“For the last time, I'm not shagging you, I don't care how nicely you ask me.” 

Of course, it's Merlin's luck that halfway through his admittedly rather lackluster retort, one of the students who've rented textbooks from him comes through the door, two heavy books in her arms. To her credit, she doesn't say anything about the rather awkward conversation she interrupted, just lifts her eyebrows at him and nods down at the books in her arms. 

“I've come to return my books?” she says, and Merlin fights the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose. 

Harry, the right bastard, is doing a piss poor job of hiding his laughter. 

Merlin sighs again and motions for the girl to follow him back to the register. 

He'd decided to start renting textbooks instead of just selling them because when he was trying to sell them, they wouldn't budge. Either he had them priced too high, or students were simply tired of forking over all their money for books they weren't ever going to crack open, but he'd had them sitting on one of his shelves for almost six months before he got the idea to try renting them. He'd been poking through the closest Waterstone's, looking for a Paddington Bear doll and accompanying book to mail to Sarah for Matthew — he loves his nephew, of course he does, but he's not going to waste a first edition on a _toddler_ — when he saw a big _Rent Your Books Here!_ sign plastered up near where the school books were being sold. 

It seemed like a good idea, and so the next day, he started offering to rent the books at about seventy percent what Waterstone's was charging, and lo and behold, he had his very first rental that same day. 

It was this girl, Rosemary or Rebecca or something, who'd been his first customer. She'd come in whilst talking on her phone, something Merlin cannot _stand_ , but as soon as she saw the rental sign, she said her goodbyes and hung up, which lifted her considerably in his opinion. She'd left the shop with four books under her arms, one for Western history, two for global affairs, and one, interestingly enough, for art. 

“Term over already?” Merlin asks her, accepting the books once she's handed them over and hauling out the pen-and-paper ledger he uses to keep track of his inventory. Merlin may love computers as much as the next person alive in the twenty-first century, but somehow it feels wrong to use modern technology willy-nilly when he sells antiques. 

The girl — Roxanne, he realizes when he checks his books — shakes her head. 

“No, I just don't need these anymore.” 

Merlin thinks about asking her why, then decides against it. Harry is still loitering around in the background, and he doesn't need to deal with encouraging him in any way, shape, or form. 

“Alright.” He waffles for a moment, then reaches over and pops open the till, pulling out a handful of cash and carefully counting it out on the counter. 

Roxanne lifts her eyebrows at him again. “What are you doing?” she asks, sounding like she's not sure she should still be standing there. 

He doesn't look up, busy doing sums in his head. “Getting your refund.” 

“What refund?” 

This time he does look up, peering at her through his glasses and wondering what's wrong with her that she doesn't understand him. “You didn't keep these the full term. I'm not going to charge you for days you aren't renting them.” 

The look on her face says she thinks he's lost his marbles. 

Harry agrees with her, if the snort he lets out is any indication. “I'm amazed you manage to stay in business, Merlin,” he calls out, still petting Buddha under his chin. 

“So am I,” Roxanne agrees, and Merlin glares at her. Traitor. 

He decides to shift the subject away from his poor business acumen. “What do you _want_ , Harry?” he asks, peeved, and pushes four crisp twenty pound notes across the table to Roxanne, pretending he doesn't see the way she gapes at him, the way her hand slides closer nice and slow like she's hoping he won't notice that she's taking the money, like she thinks he's given her too much and if he sees her take it he'll realize he's made a mistake. 

“We're redecorating the shop,” Harry says, finally leaving Merlin's cat alone and sauntering closer. 

Merlin lifts his eyebrows at him. Really? _That's_ the reason he came all this way? 

“Complete overhaul,” Harry continues, as if Merlin hasn't said anything. Which, to be fair, he hadn't. “Everything's being ripped out and replaced.” 

“Which means _what_ for me?” Merlin prompts, growing tired of waiting for Harry to get to the bloody point already. For some reason, Roxanne is still standing at the counter, watching them both, her head swiveling back and forth like a dog at a tennis match. 

“I have four lovely leather arm chairs that are going to go in the skip if you don't take them,” Harry finally explains, and Merlin's eyebrows lower immediately into a scowl. 

“No.” 

Harry sighs, actually _sighs_ , like Merlin is being terribly unreasonable. “I don't know why you won't put any seating in this shop,” he complains. “Think of how good it would be for business! You could put them over there by the window, with all that lovely natural light, and people could sit and browse through books before buying them.” 

Merlin's halfway through opening his mouth to tell Harry he doesn't _want_ people to browse, he wants them to buy and get the hell out, when Roxanne interrupts. 

“I think that's a great idea!” she says, all bright and bubbly and far too cheerful for Merlin's current disposition. 

“See?” Harry beams at her and then turns to look at Merlin expectantly. “She thinks it's a great idea.” He turns back to her and gives her that paternal look that disarms everyone under the age of thirty. It's almost distressing how easily he makes it work. “What's your name, darling?” 

Roxanne smiles at him and holds out her hand. “Roxanne. But call me Roxy,” she says, and they shake, and Merlin definitely is not annoyed that Harry has managed to get her to tell him her name when _he_ had to find out from looking in his sales book. Of course, he didn't ask, did he? 

The both of them turn equally pleading looks on him, and before he really knows what's happening, he has a university student and a tailor helping him shift books away from the low set of shelves he has by the window so they can be hauled out of the way. 

“Who even reads these?” Harry asks, holding up _A Popular History of British Seaweeds._

“I do,” Merlin replies, lying through his teeth, carefully stacking old books in Roxy's arms and trying not to think about how his life is getting away from him. “Be careful with that, please.” He may not read every book in his collection, but they're all precious to him, and the thought of someone mishandling them makes his skin crawl. 

Harry lifts his eyebrows at him, and Merlin gives in to the urge to reach out and snatch the book out of his friend's hands. “This book was published in 1851, and the illustrations are hand colored.” He knows he's protesting too much, that he's probably making himself out to seem like a very strange, book-obsessed hermit, but honestly it's not far off the mark, and watching the way Harry was flipping the book between his hands was making him profoundly nervous. “I know you think it's weird, but these books are very important to me.” 

“I don't think it's weird,” Roxy assures him, turning her back on Harry and bumping her shoulder against Merlin's arm before picking her way carefully towards the back of the shop where he'd determined they'd put the books for him to sort through later. 

Merlin feels unsettlingly reassured by that, and decides quite wisely to avoid looking at Harry for fear of what he'd see there. 

When all is said and done, Merlin has a fresh mountain of antique books taking up space on his desk that will need sorting and putting elsewhere, two sets of low shelves blocking the fire exit, and a nice space in the front of the shop for the arm chairs he's half-convinced _aren't_ being replaced in the shop Harry works in and are actually just an excuse for his friend to bully him into being a better businessman. 

Merlin resents that, thank you, but by this point in his life, he's learned to mostly go along with Harry's plans. It's a habit forged in their youth, one that has stuck with him for twenty years, and by this point it's a little late to go breaking it. 

Old dogs and all that. 

Buddha has taken advantage of the empty space to hop down from his perch and stretch out across the floor, taking up as much of the sunny spot as he can, and Merlin doesn't bother trying to stop himself from kneeling down to ruffle his fingers through his cat's fur, smiling at the stalled-engine purr that elicits. At least _someone_ is happy to let him live his life however he wants. 

Buddha allows this for a few minutes, but even he has his limits apparently, because he bats at Merlin's hand with soft paws, his golden eyes narrowed, and Merlin can read that for the hint that it is. 

So he creaks up to his feet, bemoaning his age and his knees and the weather alike, and goes to make himself a fresh cup of tea, deciding to put his unsettling afternoon behind him. 

 

These are things Merlin learns about Roxanne Morton over the next few weeks:

One, her full name. Yes, he snooped in the ledger to find out her surname, because he doesn't take credit cards, and so he can't peek at her card or the receipt to figure it out, and he certainly wasn't going to _ask_ her. 

Two, she seems terribly charmed by Harry, which Merlin is not honestly surprised by. Everyone is charmed by Harry, at least at first. It takes years of constant exposure to go from reluctantly charmed to full-blown exasperation, and it seems that Merlin's the only one who's stuck around for long enough to make that benchmark. 

Three, she has a dog of middling size with dark fur. He only finds this out because Buddha hisses at her one day and she murmurs something apologetic about dog hair on her trousers. Merlin has to fight the urge to ask her what kind of dog she has, what's its name, et cetera. He shouldn't care, really, she's just a customer. A customer who comes in nearly every single day, especially now that Harry's armchairs have been installed. 

That's number four, by the way. Roxy is _always_ in his store. She must not have anywhere to sit in her flat, because it seems that she's quite happy to use his store as her living room. Sometimes she's only there for twenty minutes, sometimes for three hours. She parks herself in the armchair closest the window and pulls out her books, propping them open on her knee and twirling a pen between her fingers as she quietly starts to work her way through them, and Merlin can't quite come up with a plausible reason to tell her to leave. She buys enough books from him that he can't use the “not a customer” line, and besides, when they do talk, he enjoys their conversation. So he doesn't say anything about this new routine, and eventually, he grows used to the sight of blonde hair lit up by the occasional beam of sunlight that pierces the heavy clouds outside in his peripheral vision. 

Five, she forgets things _all the time._ The two textbooks she had returned early were full of little knickknacks, a receipt from a cafe on the school's campus with a phone number scrawled across the bottom, a leaf, an envelope that he assumes is from her parents based on the “Morton” surname printed neatly in the upper left-hand corner. There were post-it notes in the inside covers with to-do lists and outlines for papers written out in what he assumes is her neatly-looping handwriting, and he even found what looks like a pansy carefully sandwiched between “L” and “M” in the index of the art history book. 

What Merlin should have done is scrape all these bits and pieces into the bin and put the books back on the shelves. What he _did_ was carefully collect them and put them neatly in a box that once held cigars, and set them under the counter by the till. Every time Roxy forgets something in her seat — a pen cap, a hair tie, a folded piece of paper with notes from what must be her Russian literature class written on it that's had the corner ripped off — he carefully adds it to the collection under his counter, telling himself one day he'll present it to her and tell her to stop being quite so absent-minded. 

Never mind that if he _does_ , he's sure to freak her out. 

It's not just Roxy who has decided to take over the front of his shop and turn it into their own public living room, though. There are a regular assortment of hipsters who wear thick-rimmed glasses Merlin is almost completely convinced they don't actually _need_ , with tattoos on their knuckles and jeans so tight they might as well be painted on, a frazzled-looking nanny who tried to bring her charges in once and then only came back well after five pm and only by herself, Roxy, and a friend of hers who wears astonishingly hideous track jackets and trainers with _wings_ on them. 

Merlin watches him with a sick sort of fascination when he's in the store, slouching in his chair and kicking at Roxy's knees when he grows bored. Roxy mostly ignores him, but sometimes she'll throw little pieces of balled-up paper at him, and the two of them laugh and jostle each other in that teasing way close friends have before returning to their books. 

When they leave the store, her friend settles his hand at the small of her back and pulls the door open for her, and she lifts her chin to smile at him, and Merlin feels his heart clench for reasons he refuses to think about. 

He only realizes term must have ended when Roxy stops coming into the store. Her friend still comes occasionally, though, but always alone, and he never stays for long. Merlin can feel his eyes on him as he methodically works his way through balancing his chequebook, and pointedly doesn't look up. He doesn't want to know what expression he's wearing, doesn't want to know if his embarrassing crush is that obvious to an outside observer. He's barely admitted it to himself. He won't go admitting it to some chav he doesn't even know. 

His suspicions about term are proven correct when Roxy starts to show up again, this time at around seven pm, often staying until he starts to turn off the lights and goes to switch the sign in the door from _open_ to _closed._

She hasn't rented any textbooks from him this semester, though, and he finally asks her about it one night as she's shuffling her papers and getting ready to go while he's starting to shut up. 

“It's fine, Roxy, you can stay,” he says, making a point to make it sound absent and distracted as he goes around to collect the books people have left lying around, stacking them in his arms so that he can return them to their homes. “I'll be at least another half hour.” 

“Oh. Alright, thank you.” Her voice is quiet, and when he glances back at her, she's smiling a little to herself as she settles back in her chair. Buddha takes this opportunity to step delicately away from his window seat into her lap, and curls up there, kneading his paws into her thigh. “Oh!” 

Merlin pokes his head out around a bookshelf and laughs at the expression he sees on her face, and the smug look of his cat. “Now you _must_ stay,” he teases. 

“I guess I must,” she agrees, settling her hand down on Buddha's spine, her fingers scritching in his fur. 

Merlin goes back to shelving his books, feeling pleased. 

“So what are you studying this term?” he asks, hiding behind a shelf of biographies. “I noticed you didn't rent any books from me this time around.” 

Of course, she doesn't have to rent books from him, she's here every day, and he certainly wouldn't stop her from picking up whatever book she needed to read it in her arm chair before leaving and going to class or back to her flat. 

She's silent for a long time, and for one awful moment, he thinks she won't answer. Or worse, she's turfed Buddha out of her lap and left the store. 

“My parents bought me my books this term,” she confesses after a moment, and it's only because he's holding his breath that he hears her at all. She sounds embarrassed, like having her parents help her out bruises her pride, like admitting that a full-time university student would need assistance every now and then from their family. 

“That was nice of them,” Merlin says neutrally, sliding the last of his books back on its shelf and turning to head back to his counter, deciding to change the subject, since it seems to be a touchy one. “I'm going to put the kettle on, would you like a cuppa?” 

“...Alright.” 

He can hear an intake of breath like she's about to say something else, but even though he slows down as he fills the kettle and pulls out his tea, the shop is silent. By the time the water has steeped and he's brought her a cup in a slightly-chipped “My bookshelf is my boyfriend” mug, whatever embarrassment he thinks she felt is wiped away, especially when she looks up and reads the mug he's holding out to her. 

“Don't ask,” he mutters, clutching his own _Pride and Prejudice_ Penguin mug and rolling his eyes in the face of her smirk. “Harry's idea of a joke.” 

Understanding smooths out her quirked eyebrows, but she's still smiling at him as he settles in the chair across from her. “How long have you been together?” she asks, slightly hesitant like she thinks she's figured out the situation but isn't quite sure. 

Merlin sighs. “We're not,” he replies, resenting his best friend and his incredible ability to make everyone who ever talks to them think he and Harry are shagging. 

Roxy's mouth rounds in a quiet _o_ , but she politely doesn't say anything, just lifts her tea to her mouth. 

“No, we're not together,” Merlin repeats, looking down at his knees, at the finely-tailored trousers he's wearing, a gift from his troublesome best friend. They're not together, but they might as well be, sometimes. He's thought about it, on lonely nights, about ringing Harry up and inviting himself over, crawling into bed with him, taking comfort in the familiarity of how much he wants to punch him in his stupid face. But they've been friends twenty years, and he doesn't want to ruin a good thing, especially since he doesn't love Harry, and isn't sure he ever _could._ “We've just known each other a long time.” 

By the time he looks up at her again, she's back to looking politely interested, but she doesn't open her mouth to ask him to elaborate, and so silence begins to stretch between them. 

Surprisingly enough, it's very comfortable. 

Every time Roxy catches his eyes, she smiles at him, but mostly she spends her time looking down at Buddha in her lap, rubbing her neat fingernails over the cat's giant skull, clucking him under his chin, fiddling with his silky ears, stroking down the length of his nose. 

Merlin watches her pet his cat, sinking deeper and deeper into the chairs that he will reluctantly admit have been a good idea, and although he takes his time, eventually he's drained his mug and there's nothing left but a few loose tea leaves and a ring of milky residue staining the bottom. 

“I should be going,” Roxy says quietly, and Merlin is almost startled to realize it's been at least forty minutes of them just sitting there, drinking tea in silence. 

He nods and levers himself to his feet, reaching out to take her mug from her. “Yes, I should finish closing up.” 

Buddha yowls when Roxy tries to lift him out of her lap, pushing off himself and stalking away with his tail held high and ears twitching, but luckily she doesn't seem offended, just shakes her head gently and collects her things. She's shrugging into her jacket when Merlin returns from depositing the mugs in the sink in the back, and the smile on her face when he reappears feels far more significant than it probably should. 

“Thanks for the tea, Merlin,” she says as he walks her to the door, unlocking it and holding it open for her so she can exit onto the street. “I'll see you tomorrow?” 

He nods, and doesn't let himself think about how seeing her every day has become normal. “Tomorrow,” he agrees. 

She hesitates for a moment, her eyes flicking from his face down to his chest and back again, and Merlin wonders if she's going to go in for a hug or something, but instead she just beams at him and nods as well. 

“Okay, see you!” she chirps and then darts out into the street, dashing between the raindrops that have started to fall, clutching her books to her chest with the kind of fervor Merlin can appreciate. To his surprise, she doesn't turn and head down to the corner where the tube station is, she fishes through her pocket and pulls out a set of keys to unlock the unassuming door next to the kebab shop across the street. He's still standing in his doorway, watching, when she gets the door unlocked and slips through, turning at the last moment to wave cheerily at him before disappearing. 

Merlin stares at the closed door for what feels like a very long time. 

Roxy lives across the street from him. They're _neighbors._

Granted, you don't introduce yourself to your neighbors in London until you've fulfilled the requisite five to ten years nodding politely at each other as you pass by, but this is a revelation Merlin had been completely unprepared for. 

He eventually shuts the door to keep Buddha from weaving his way through Merlin's legs and out into the street, but it takes him quite a bit longer than normal to finish closing up so that he can climb the stairs that lead to his flat tucked above the shop, and when he does, he can see a light on across the street through his living room window. 

Logically, he has no idea if it's Roxy. There are many flats in the building across from his. Illogically, he's convinced it's her. 

He forces himself to turn away and head for his bedroom so he doesn't do something stupid like stand at the window and stare out into the street like the brooding hero in one of his books, shaking his head at himself as he heats up his dinner and eats it standing over the kitchen sink, shaking his head at himself as he makes one more cup of tea, shaking his head at himself as he brushes his teeth and changes into his pajamas. 

“I think I'm going mad, Buddha,” he tells the giant fluffy cat as it jumps up on his bed and makes himself comfortable right in the center. 

Buddha blinks at him slowly with his yellow eyes, and then deliberately closes them and lowers his head to his paws. 

“Yeah, you're right,” Merlin agrees with a sigh, and carefully fits himself around his cat as he sets his glasses on his bedside table and turns off the light. “Obsessing about it is going to get me nowhere.” 

Sleep is a long time coming, and when it does, he dreams of honey-blonde hair shining in a shaft of sunlight, of dust motes dancing in the air, of slender hands skimming gently over the spines of leather-bound books.


	2. Chapter 2

Merlin and Galahad — Theodore and Harry, if you insist on being technical — have known each other far too long. Their friendship has morphed from _friendship_ into casual antagonism, the kind of bickering love shared between siblings who can't spend too much time in each others' company without boiling over and starting a brawl, but who would raze an entire country and topple governments if they had to in order to keep the other one safe. 

Harry is Merlin's best friend. 

Harry is the reason Merlin is going to die an early death.

“You just need to get your leg over,” he tells him out of the fucking blue, and it's only by the grace of god that Merlin isn't drinking at that very moment, or he would choke on his tea and probably aspirate enough boiling hot liquid that his lungs would rebel and he'd keel over and die. 

At least he wouldn't have to have this conversation, if that happened.

“What?”

Harry gives him a pointed look over his stupid chunky glasses — Harry is the unapologetic poof of the two of them, and despite his normally beautifully-curated wardrobe, for some unknown reason, he insists on clinging to a style of glasses that went out of fashion in the _eighties_ — and lifts his tea to his mouth again. 

“You're acting even more cross than normal,” he elaborates, as if that is a perfectly reasonable explanation. “You always get this way when you've been single for too long.” 

Merlin resents that, but as much as he doesn't want to admit it, Harry is probably right. 

“Well what the hell do you suggest I do about that?” Merlin asks crossly, knowing he's just proving Harry's point but unable to resist rising to the bait. 

“You need to find yourself a pretty young thing and have a wild weekend of marathon sex,” Harry says succinctly, and when Merlin guiltily looks up to see the expression on his best friend's face, he gets to see it morph from suspicion to triumph. Merlin is already groaning in defeat when Harry crows triumphantly, setting his tea down so he can clap both hands on his knees. 

“Please stop talking,” Merlin begs, but is completely ignored as Harry talks over him. 

“I knew it! You fancy our dear Roxanne, don't you?” 

Merlin covers his face with his hands. 

“Merlin, you sly old dog, I didn't think you had it in you.” Harry leans over and pats Merlin's knee patronizingly, but it does feel a little reassuring nonetheless. “Not that I blame you, of course,” Harry continues, because he is a cruel, cruel man. “If I went for the fairer sex, I don't think I could resist making a pass at her myself.” 

Merlin resists the urge to snarl at Harry, because he knows he's goading him on purpose and if he protests too much, he'll just be proving Harry's point. 

Silence reigns between them for a few minutes, and Merlin just starts to cautiously allow himself to think that maybe, just maybe, that's going to be the end of it, when Harry nods sharply. 

“Right, we're going to have to do something about this.” 

Merlin has seen Harry's idea of _doing something about this_ multiple times in the twenty years they've known each other, and is appropriately horrified by the implications of this statement. 

“No, we really don't,” he protests. “Besides, she's got a boyfriend already, so there's no point in saying anything.” _Please, drop it._ He has no idea if Roxy and her track jacket-wearing friend are an item, but they're in his shop together often enough and are all up in each other's personal space often enough for him to feel fairly confident drawing this conclusion. Besides, maybe that will be enough to put Harry off.

It's not. He shakes his head. “That means nothing.” 

Merlin gapes at him. “That means everything!” 

“Merlin, you're being really quite dull about this whole thing.” 

“I'm not being _dull_ , I'm trying to be a decent fucking human being and not break up a perfectly functional relationship just because I'd like to see her naked. Oh god.” He pulls his glasses off and covers his face with his hands again, idly wondering if he could maybe permanently attach his hands to his skull so he doesn't have to face the outside world ever again. He's debating making a pass at the twenty-something student who lives across the street from him. This is actually happening. 

“Not to mention I'm old enough to be her _father_ ,” he continues, groaning into his palms. 

Harry doesn't seem to think much of this argument, if the scoff he makes is any indication. 

“Kids her age love the idea of an older partner,” he proclaims, like he's some sort of sexual sage and knows the answer to everything. Which he _doesn't._ “All that experience gets them hot under the collar.” 

Merlin peers at Harry through his fingers, frowning at the blurry human-shaped figure sitting across from him. “Do you even listen to the words that come out of your mouth?” 

Harry waves a hand dismissively at him. 

“You want to know what I think?” he asks. 

Merlin sighs and sits back upright, putting his glasses back on his face so the world returns to its regular degree of clarity. If only he could have glasses that worked on his love life, too. Then he wouldn't have to suffer through conversations like this. “No, but I'm pretty sure you're going to tell me no matter what I say.” 

Harry proves his point by continuing as if Merlin hasn't said anything. “I think you _like_ being miserable,” he says, shooting Merlin a shrewd look over his teacup. “I think being able to complain and wallow in your misfortune gives you something to do during the day and if you were perfectly happy, you'd get bored.” 

Merlin would never admit it, but Harry has a point. He's Scottish. They're inherently distrustful of contentment. What else would he talk about when he sees his friends if there's nothing wrong? 

“Just drop it, Harry,” he pleads, picking up his teacup and deliberately looking into it to avoid making eye contact. 

Harry sighs heavily, and the clink of china means he's set his tea down. “Alright, fine. But only because you're being such a twat about it.” 

“ _You're_ being a twat about it,” Merlin mutters into his tea, and blithely pretends Harry can't hear him. Miraculously, Harry plays along and keeps silent for a change, and Merlin is able to breathe out a sigh of relief. 

Perhaps sensing that he's pushed the envelope as much as he can, Harry mercifully changes the subject back to the football game last night, and Merlin lets himself be drawn into a fervent debate over what a shit team Arsenal is. By the time he's finished ranting about how much he hates that massive prick Ramsey, Merlin has almost forgotten about their conversation of before. 

This, he will come to realize later, is a mistake.

 

Roxy has become very comfortable in his shop. This is not surprising, considering she crosses the street and makes herself at home every day he's open, but the realization hits him particularly strongly when he pops off to the loo quickly and comes back to find Roxy behind the counter, ringing up one of the hipsters that occasionally wander in. 

Merlin freezes halfway through wiping his hands on his thighs because he keeps forgetting to buy new paper towels for the bathroom, and watches as Roxy makes smalltalk with the mustached customer, her hands moving swiftly and surely as she wraps the book in butchers paper and tapes down the flaps before scrawling the store name and address across the front in her looping handwriting. 

By the time the hipster has left, his book clutched under his arm, Merlin has managed to unstick his feet and finishes his journey to the front of the store. 

“You don't work here,” he says warily as he watches Roxy slip money into the till. 

“No,” she agrees, shutting the drawer and tidying up the counter, sliding the Sharpie back in the pot he keeps them in and putting the tape away. “But you weren't here, and he was ready to buy.” 

This makes sense, but still. Merlin doesn't have employees. The shop barely has enough of a turnover rate for him to be able to pay the electricity bill with his earnings, he has no need of a shop girl. Although she apparently _is_ far better with customers than he is, but that hardly comes as a surprise. 

“...Do you _want_ to work here?” 

Roxy gives him what looks unsettlingly like a pitying look. She's been spending too much time with Harry. “No, Merlin. I just wanted to help.” 

He doesn't actually know what to do with that. “Thank you?” 

She doesn't quite laugh, but her lips curl charmingly, and when she slides out from behind the counter, she pats him on the chest. “You're welcome,” she murmurs, her voice warm, and Merlin finds that he doesn't even mind that she's mocking him. 

 

Eggsy, Merlin learns, is far smarter than he looks. Either that, or he's inherently suspicious of men who hang around his friends, because when Roxy waves Merlin over to come join them in their regular seats one day when the shop is dead silent and he's got nothing to do, the young man glares at him with a kind of hostility Merlin feels is very out of place, given the setting. 

Roxy seems to agree, because she whaps Eggsy on the leg with her book and narrows her eyes at him. 

“Merlin, this is Eggsy,” she says, gesturing between them. “Eggsy, Merlin.” 

Merlin dutifully holds out his hand and doesn't really begrudge Eggsy the visible reluctance he has in reaching out to shake it. 

“What the hell kind of name is _Merlin_ , anyway?” Eggsy asks, swallowing his vowels. 

Merlin lifts his eyebrows at him. “What the hell kind of name is _Eggsy?_ ” he counters, and feels a little mollified when Eggsy inclines his head a little, conceding his point. 

Roxy rolls her eyes so hard, Merlin can almost _hear_ it. Luckily, she doesn't say anything about the posturing happening in front of her, and Merlin is able to avoid having to think about the fact that he's making an idiot of himself. 

Merlin is spared from having to come up with pleasant smalltalk with the twenty-something friend (boyfriend?) of his most loyal customer by the bell chiming above his door. He's gratefully extricating himself from the conversation when he hears Harry's voice ringing out through the shop, and he freezes, his eyes closing for a moment as he struggles to summon up enough willpower to deal with his troublesome best friend. 

“Not you again,” he grumbles as he turns to face Harry, who is looking like a walking advert for his shop in a pinstripe suit that is, quite literally, made for his body. 

“Me again!” Harry agrees cheerfully, and Merlin pointedly does not turn his head to look back at the quiet snickers he can hear behind him. He hurries over to herd Harry away from the chairs, ignoring the way he waves at Roxy over their shoulders, and all but shoves him into the tiny office he mostly doesn't use as anything more than a room in which to sort books that he's going to put out on the shelves soon. 

“What do you want?” he asks, feeling decidedly cross and sorry for himself. 

“Arthur's retirement party,” Harry replies once they're out of earshot of the rest of the shop, which is explanation enough, honestly. 

Merlin is grateful that the playfulness in Harry's demeanor has fled, and he's back to looking more or less neutral, an expression Merlin knows from experience means he's forcing himself to keep his disapproval in check. 

“I washed my hands of that lot when I retired,” Merlin reminds him, stuffing his hands in his pockets so he can curl his fingers into his palms without Harry seeing. Harry knows what he's doing, of course, as they've known each other half their lives, but still, the thin barrier of his trouser pockets makes him feel a little calmer about the whole thing. 

Harry sighs, pulling off his glasses and rubbing at his eyes in a move Merlin recognizes Harry must have picked up from himself. 

“I know, Merlin. I remember. But I can't face them alone.” 

Merlin feels badly for him, he really does. But no matter how much he loves Harry, he's still not willing to put himself through the special torture that is seeing their old unit again, let alone seeing their unit commander. Thinking back to their time in the Marines makes him feel sick to his stomach, sometimes, and the last thing he wants to do is go to a retirement party for the man who ordered them to kill civilians in cold blood like they were stray dogs needing to be put down.

He shakes his head, digging his fingernails into his palms. “I can't, Harry.” 

“Merlin—”

Merlin cuts him off. “No. I said I wouldn't have anything to do with them and I meant it.” 

Harry sighs. “Don't make me go alone,” he pleads quietly, his shoulders rounding a little, looking so much like the haunted boy Merlin remembers from the aftermath of that mission that he feels an urge to wrap his arms around Harry's shoulders and hug him as they tremble together. They'd crammed themselves into one cot for almost a week afterwards, knees knocking, perpetually in danger of falling off the edge of the bed but too desperate for the comfort of human contact to want to sleep alone.

“Don't go, then.” 

Harry lifts his head to glare at him. “It's not that simple!” 

Merlin feels a horrible sense of _déjà vu_. They've had this conversation so many times he can almost have it in his sleep. “It's precisely that simple,” he says quietly, suddenly feeling exhausted. 

“Unwin jumped on that grenade to save us,” Harry insists, leaning closer, like his proximity will be enough to change Merlin's mind, like he hasn't heard this argument before. 

“And I fucking appreciate his sacrifice. If this was a party for Lee, you know damn well that I would go.” Merlin hadn't known Lee Unwin that well, as he was a fresh transfer to their unit, and Merlin's job as the comms tech on that particular mission meant that he had mostly kept to himself. But he'd been there when Unwin shoved Harry aside and threw himself down on that grenade to save their lives, and he remembers damn well the smell of charred flesh and fresh blood that followed the detonation, the wet splatters all over the walls and the floor, the chunks of Unwin's body that had been thrown in all directions. 

He still startles awake to the phantom sound of explosions, the taste of ash and blood sticking in the back of his throat, to the feel of a machine gun kicking in his hands as he fires shot after shot. 

“We killed those people,” he hisses, anger warring with the exhaustion that's dragging him down. “Lee died when he didn't have to, but we slaughtered that entire fucking village as recompense, just because we were ordered to.” 

He pulls his hand out of his pocket and jabs his finger into Harry's chest, taking a petty sort of pleasure in watching him fight back a wince.

“Arthur is a murderer, Harry, and he dragged the rest of us down with him. I don't care how many medals are pinned to his chest, I'm not going anywhere near _General_ King. I promised myself the next time I saw him I would kill him, and I have every intention of keeping my promise.” 

Harry looks at him silently, his eyes dark behind his glasses, and Merlin meets his gaze unflinchingly. Just because he runs a quietly failing bookstore and keeps to himself now doesn't mean he doesn't know how to kill a man, isn't capable of snapping Arthur's neck or sliding a knife between his ribs, and Harry knows he's perfectly willing to give up his quiet, uncomplicated little life here for a life behind bars for the chance for revenge. 

Finally, after at least a minute of staring at each other, Harry's shoulders slump again and he nods.

“Don't go to the party,” Merlin says quietly now that their little show of dominance has been settled, his hand lifting to settle on Harry's shoulder and squeezing gently. “Don't put yourself through that. You have nothing to prove to them.” 

Harry sighs quietly, a slip of breath leaking out between his teeth. “I wish you would reconsider.” 

Merlin shakes his head and squeezes Harry's shoulder, already turning away. “You know I can't do that, Galahad.” 

He leaves Harry in his office and walks back into his shop, feeling like he's walking through a dream. Everything feels hazy and unreal in the aftermath of the reminder of their shared past, and when he comes to the front of the store and finds Roxy and Eggsy still sitting there, he's surprised enough for his steps to falter as he stares at them. 

Roxy looks concerned as she looks up at him, but Eggsy just looks suspicious.

“I'm sorry, you two, but I'm closing up for the day,” he says finally, hearing his own voice from far away. 

“Is everything alright?” Roxy asks hesitantly, already reaching for her books. Merlin feels very grateful for her, suddenly, for her willingness to listen to him and her concern both. 

He rubs his hand over his scalp and dredges up a smile, though he's pretty sure it looks as insincere as it feels. “Yeah, love, everything's fine. Something came up, that's all.” 

He doesn't realize his slip until after the pet name has fallen from his lips and he sees a blush bloom in her cheeks. Luckily, Merlin is feeling too emotionally drained to bother with embarrassment, so he just stands there and pretends he didn't make a fool of himself. 

“Oh. Alright,” she replies, her voice sounding small, but she's smiling as she gathers her belongings. 

Eggsy looks mutinous as he glances between them, but mercifully keeps his mouth shut as they pick up their detritus and start to trail towards the door. 

“I'll see you tomorrow?” Roxy asks as he's about to shut the door behind them and flip the sign from _open_ to _closed._ She's looking up at him, her eyes wide, her lashes dark against her skin, concern writ clearly across her face. Merlin has to fight the urge to lift his hand to brush his thumb over the fading blush on her cheek.

“Tomorrow,” he agrees, the way he does every time they have this conversation, pretending that the familiarity of it doesn't settle something inside his chest. 

“Okay, see you,” she replies, same as always, and when she lifts one hand to pat his chest, her palm lingers against his shirtfront, her fingers curling slightly before she lets her hand fall away and turns to follow as Eggsy leads her down the street. 

Merlin stands in his doorway watching them for long enough that he gets to see her turn at the corner and wave, though he doesn't manage to lift his own hand in response until well after they've disappeared from view.

 

“Your boyfriend seems nice,” Merlin offers a few weeks later, stepping around Roxy as they make a fresh pot of tea. 

She glances up sharply, frowning at him, the teaspoon she just filled with tea leaves tipping dangerously to one side. Merlin automatically reaches out to steady her hand, and her attention shifts just as sharply down to where they're touching. 

“Eggsy?” 

Merlin draws his hand away and hums, fighting the urge to flex his fingers. 

“He's not my boyfriend.” She sets the spoon back into the tin of tea and looks up at him again, an expression on her face that Merlin has a hard time deciphering. “We tried, but it didn't work out. We're just friends.” 

“Oh.” Merlin isn't quite sure what to say to that. He hadn't factored that as a possibility, all the times he's rehearsed having this conversation. 

Roxy leans in closer, like she needs to whisper when they're the only two back here and the kitchenette is so small that there's barely enough room for them both to stand next to each other. “If you want to know what I think, I think he's interested in Harry.” 

Merlin is somehow both completely unsurprised and also shocked at the same time. Mostly unsurprised, though. It is _Harry_ , after all.

“You don't say,” he says dryly, craning his head back to peer down the corridor to where he can just see the armchairs at the front of the store. Eggsy looks like he's practically hanging on to everything Harry says, his eyes wide in his face, and Merlin sighs. “Do you want me to speak to Harry about it?” 

Roxy grabs on to his arm to steady herself as she, too, leans far out into the doorway so she can see down the corridor. Her hair smells like vanilla and something floral, roses maybe. 

Merlin hates himself. 

“I don't think you're going to have to,” she says, her fingers curling in his sweater, digging into his arm. He's trying not to focus on the way she's pressed up against him, clutching at his arm with one hand as she lets the other go to settle it against his side for better traction. “They seem to be getting on just fine without us.” 

Suddenly, Harry's insistence that Roxy help Merlin with making the tea — _“Don't expect him to carry it all himself, love, you've never seen Merlin drop a teacup on his foot. The _language_ that comes out of his mouth, I swear, it's enough to make a sailor blush.”_ — grows an ulterior motive; Merlin had assumed it was Harry's unsubtle way of getting the two of them into a tiny little room together without the disapproving supervision of Roxy's not-boyfriend, but now he has a feeling it was also to get them both out of the way so Harry could lay on his particular brand of charm with a trowel without _Merlin_ around to be disapproving instead. 

The amount of unannounced visits Harry's been making to the shop start to make a lot more sense, too.

“Wonderful,” he says dryly, and definitely does _not_ focus on the way Roxy's eyes sparkle when she laughs and turns her face up towards him. 

“I think it's sweet,” she says, sounding almost wistful, sagging a little against his side but not letting go of his sweater. 

Merlin thins his lips at her and doesn't point out that he disagrees with her almost entirely. He loves Harry like a brother, but he's been present for enough of his friend's relationships to know that they tend to be of the flash-in-the-pan variety, an excuse for him to play with something shiny and new like he's a magpie or a toddler clutching at a brand-new toy but are hardly anything more serious. 

Sadly, much like a toddler, Harry tends to grow bored of his playthings quickly. 

It's selfish, he knows, but all Merlin can think about is whether or not the inevitable (and most likely incredibly messy) breakup that will follow in the wake of Harry and Eggsy engaging in any kind of relationship will sour the nascent friendship he likes to think he and Roxy have formed. 

Merlin is a loyal enough friend that he's staunchly stood by Harry's side throughout every ending relationship he'd been forced to witness, firmly in his former teammate's camp, even if he'd liked Harry's now-ex lovers. 

He doesn't want to have to ditch Roxy for Harry, no matter that they are hardly friends and certainly nothing more. 

He looks down at her in the dim light of his kitchenette — two of the three bulbs in the overhead light have blown and he just hasn't gotten around to fixing them yet — and lets himself prematurely mourn what might have been. She's still peering down the corridor at where Harry and Eggsy are flirting outrageously with each other, and the sight has her smiling, her cheeks pink either with happiness or rouge, he can't tell, her eyes sparkling. 

Roxy is pretty, of course she is. It's part of what drew him to her, Merlin's man enough to admit that. She's got lovely thick hair in a shade between blonde and brown, caramel and honey, even lovelier lips that curl into a smile whenever she sees him, and she handles his books as carefully as he does, her fingers gentle and almost reverent on their spines as she helps him shelve them at the end of the night before she goes home. 

Merlin isn't prone to fantasy, to let himself drift off into daydreams, but if he _was_ , he knows he would daydream about the girl still clinging to his side. 

“I don't think he likes me very much,” he says abruptly in an effort to nip those thoughts in the bud before they flower into something he can't handle.

Roxy looks up at him sharply, clearly startled by his outburst. “...Eggsy?” 

Merlin nods. 

She rolls her eyes and huffs a little laugh through her nose. “He's like that, I'm sorry. It's nothing personal.” 

“It feels rather personal from where I'm standing,” he replies, relieved that he can focus on something as libido-killing as Roxy's best friend and his potent disapproval of anything Merlin-related.

“It's not, I promise.” Merlin just arches his eyebrows at her and so she continues, glancing back down the corridor before turning her attention fully on him. She doesn't let go of his arm, though. “He's just...suspicious. Don't tell him I told you, but his step-dad is a right piece of work. Hits his mum, you know. We've tried to get her to go to the police, but she's too afraid. He just doesn't trust men because of Dean, you know? Especially men who—well, men who are friends with the women in his life.” 

He wonders where she was going to go with that sentence, but then decides not to think about it. 

“He thinks I'm going to hit you?” he asks instead, glancing around her to look down the corridor himself. 

“No! Well... I don't know. _Maybe._ ” She frowns, shaking her head, and a wisp of hair falls free of her ponytail to drape casually across her temple. “Dean was nice at the beginning. Helpful. Loving. I guess he's just suspicious.” 

“Most abusers generally are,” Merlin replies, a twinge of sympathy resonating in his chest. 

Both her hands migrate from his arm to the front of his sweater, and Merlin looks down to see her clutching at his front, staring intently up at him. “You have to promise me you won't tell him I told you,” she insists, looking so lovely in all her fierceness that Merlin has to curl his hands into fists to keep from reaching out for her as well. 

“Of course,” he agrees easily, pleased when her concerned expression melts into something softer, warmer. 

“Thank you, Merlin.” 

He'd balled his hands into fists, but somehow one hand lifts to brush that tendril of hair out of her face, and he feels his heart stutter when her eyelids flutter and she turns ever so slightly into the touch of his fingers. “You're welcome.” 

Her eyes slowly open and she looks up at him, her hands flattening out against his chest, smoothing out the places where she'd bunched his sweater in her fists until she winds up with them just resting there, as light a butterfly landing on a branch, leaving him feeling like if he breathes too deeply, they'll flutter away and he'll be left missing their weight. 

She licks her lips, drawing his eyes down away from hers, and he knows he's staring at her mouth but he can't help himself. 

His hands settle on her hips. 

“Merlin,” she breathes, her weight shifting forward as she sways a little closer to him, lifting slightly onto her toes.

Despite all the hours he's spent telling himself this is a terrible idea, all the times he's chastised himself, called himself horrible names for being attracted to her, he gives in very quickly to the urge to lean down to meet her halfway, his eyelids lowering in preparation for the touch her her lips to his. 

“Oi, where's the tea?” comes floating down the corridor, and Merlin jerks away so quickly he stumbles into the counter and nearly knocks the teapot off onto the floor. 

“Jesus Christ,” he breathes, staring at her, his hands tingling. 

At least Roxy looks just as shocked as he feels, and he gets to watch color flood her face again as she lifts a hand to fix her hair, stroking it out of her face before she turns away from him to yell back at Eggsy. “It's coming, hold your horses!” 

Her gaze trained firmly on the paraphernalia they'd laid out to make tea, she pushes past him and sets to filling the tea egg and dunking it into the pot, her hands moving quickly and surely. 

Merlin feels sick. “Roxy...” 

She shakes her head as she pours hot water from the kettle into the pot. “It's okay, Merlin,” she says, finally glancing up at him when she's emptied the kettle and is setting it back on its stand. He's surprised to find that she's smiling, her cheeks still charmingly pink. “It's just bad timing, isn't it?” 

Merlin swallows and nods tentatively, automatically curling his hands around the mugs she presses into them, watching her as she bustles around like a busy little bee. 

“Next time we'll just have to be a little more deliberate about when we have conversations like this.” 

He resists the urge to parrot _next time?_ at her like an idiot, but just barely. He'd spent so long thinking that she'd be horrified if she knew what he thought about her that he hadn't considered that she might be interested in him too. And, sure, this might be a fluke, but the smile on her face as she picks up the tea pot and slides past him into the corridor is equal parts pleased and smug, and he's pretty sure he's not imagining the swing to her hips as she minces away from him, leaving him to bring the mugs. 

“Next time,” he murmurs, staring down at the four empty mugs he's holding in his hands, rooted to the spot. 

When he hears his name shouted at him from the front of the shop, he shakes his head and follows in Roxy's footsteps, fighting the urge to smile as well.

**Author's Note:**

> For the ever-patient [demisms](http://archiveofourown.org/users/demisms), who has held my hand this whole time and been my cheerleader when I've whined in full capslock about not being able to do this.


End file.
